Chai: A Tasty Alternative to Eye Of Newt

When I was a youngin' one of my favourite books was The Witches by Roald Dahl. Growing up, my sister, my friend and I spent hours "brewing" dirt, sticks, detergent (and on one memorable occasion, my grandmother's expensive collection of Lancome cosmetics) into "potions". We kept spell books, recited incantations, and read and re-read The Witches until we were just about able to recite it word-for-word.


Now that I'm all grown up I don't have the childlike abandon required to permit myself to run about the house tipping this, that and the other into my cauldron, gleefully proclaiming magical skill (a lamentable side effect of getting older is that potion preparation at the age of twenty-two gives the impression that one is just a little "off"). Instead, I bake cakes, cook dinners, and tonight I made chai.


To my mind, the enjoyment of chai is as much in the preparation as it is in the consumption. Meditatively stirring a pot of chai, breathing in the smells of warming spices, is about as close as I can get to brewing up a potion without freaking out my boyfriend or cooking up my cat. I've heard it said that you know you're getting old when you get excited at the prospect of a warm cup of tea. Well folks, I'm undeniably getting older, but I get excited for chai not because I'm ageing, but because it lets me indulge my inner eight year old for a little while.


What you will need:
This recipe makes enough for four cups of chai, or thereabouts.

• 2 cups of milk (Bonsoy works well, for those who like soymilk)
• 1 1/2 cups of water
• Two heaped teaspoons of good quality loose leaf black tea
• Four or five cardamom pods, bashed so they're split open
• One cinnamon stick, or about half a teaspoon of ground cinnamon
• One three centimeter piece of fresh ginger, peeled and bruised slightly to allow it to release its flavour
• Eight to ten cloves
• Just a splash of vanilla essence (or some vanilla beans, if you have some)
• Two large desert spoons of sugar, I use brown or raw sugar because I prefer the way it tastes. Some people prefer to use honey, but I think it overwhelms the spices.
  
  

What you will need to do:

Preparation is so simple, it's really just a matter of throwing everything into a pot and simmering until ready - more or less the same method I employed when brewing up potions in the back yard with my sister! Add all of the above ingredients to a pot and slowly raise the temperature until your chai is simmering (don't allow your chai to boil as the milk may burn). Stir constantly for around fifteen minutes, then strain. You can serve at this point, or else transfer back to the pot and whisk until it is a little bit foamy. Home made chai is so much better than the bought stuff, and it's such a lot of fun to make. Enjoy.

Sugar and Spice and All Things Nice: Easy Muesli Slice

A few evenings ago, whilst half way through an episode of my favourite serial-killer thriller, I was suddenly and inexplicably struck by an overwhelming craving for muesli slice. I can't say where the craving came from, needless to say I'm concerned about the psychological implications of craving baked goods whilst watching this gorgeous man hack up bad guys and stalk around Miami looking broody. But rather than question where my craving came from (potentially getting bogged down in some sort of Freudian appetite analysis) I'm choosing to focus on the positives: my craving was bizarre enough, but the outcome was delicious. A chewy-but-crunchy slice that is so easy to make it's positively criminal. The recipe is my own little creation, and I'm chuffed that the slice turned out as well as it did, given that I haphazardly made this one up as I went along!

What You Will Need:

2 cups muesli (I used a bircher muesli with the candied peel picked out. Peel. Ick.)

3/4 cup sugar

1/2 cup self raising flour

1/2 cup raisins

125g butter, melted

2 lightly beaten eggs

1 tbsp maple syrup

1 tsp cinnamon

1 tsp nutmeg

A liberal pinch of salt

What You Will Need To Do:

1. Preheat your oven to around 180 C. Combine all dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl.

2. Melt butter over a low heat, stirring through the maple syrup. Allow to cool slightly then add to the dry mixture along with the eggs. Stir until all ingredients are wet.

3. Line a 20cm by 10cm baking tray or oven proof dish with baking paper. Spread slice mixture evenly across the bottom of the dish, make sure to press the mixture into the corners of the dish.

4. Bake until golden brown. This took about 35 minutes in my little oven.

5. Once browned, stand slice until cool. Remove the slice from the baking tray and dust with a little icing sugar. I enjoyed my slice with a second episode of Dexter and a strong cup of coffee.

So there you have it, my very first recipe-free baking success. This is the sort of slice that tastes nourishing and wholesome. Perfect for entertaining flights of fancy involving baking for one's sexy serial killer husband. Of course I could've fantasized about baking for this dream boat, but sadly it's not meant to be... The man doesn't eat.

Traditional Lamb Shank Soup

My next contribution to Soup Week is a delicious Lamb Shank soup. My Nan served this soup up for Sunday Lunch when I last visited, and I enjoyed it so much that I asked for the recipe. Nanny tells me that this is one of her mother's recipes, and it makes me feel all warm inside to think that I'm enjoying this dish so many years after my great-grandmother first prepared it. It's traditional and delicious, perfect winter fare.

What You Will Need:

• 2 large carrots
• 2 large sticks of celery
• 1 large potato
• 1 large onion
• 1 large or two small zucchini
• Any other vegetables you'd like to add to your soup (I included a tin of diced tomatoes in the soup pictured above)
• 1 cup of pearl barley
• 3 or 4 lamb shanks depending on how far you'd like your soup to stretch (I'd suggest four if you're feeding four or more people, especially if the shanks themselves are small)
• Approximately 1.5 litres of vegetable stock
• 1 bay leaf
• 1 cup of fresh parsley, and any other herbs you might like to add to your broth
• Salt, pepper and parmesan cheese to taste

What You Will Need To Do:

1. Dice all the vegetables, brown them slightly in a little olive oil, then pour over the vegetable stock (and tinned tomatoes if you're using them) Bring the lot to the boil.

2. Add the lamb shanks, pearl barley, bay leaf and any other dry herbs to the soup mix. Turn the heat down so your soup is simmering gently. You may need to add more stock to the soup here, depending on how much liquid the pearl barley absorbs as it cooks.

3. Simmer your soup until the lamb begins to fall from the bone. Remove the lamb shanks and roughly carve up the meat, then add back to the soup along with your chopped parsley. Serve hot with a little pepper and parmesan cheese on top.

This is the first ever meat recipe to appear on our little blog, I'm clearly not a vegetarian but I try to eat ethically, and I buy my meat from rare breed and organic butchers who source their produce from smaller farms that aim to minimise their impact on the environment. If you're a fellow inner-city Melburnian who is looking to support ethical farming, I'd suggest shopping at The Queen Victoria Markets in town, as a few of their butchers sell rare breed and organic meats from smaller, local producers. In addition, the Rare Breeds Trust of Australia is a useful resource if you're concerned with buying ethically sourced meat, and they support the lovely Collingwood Children's Farm, a worthy project operating out of Melbourne, and a gorgeous spot to enjoy breakfast too.

Roast Tomato and Capsicum Soup, Oh My

Oh my god, you guys! Welcome to soup week. Or, Week O' Soup, as I think of it.

It seems right to have our first themed week dedicated to soup. Who doesn’t love it? If you're rocking the student lifestyle, it’s perfect for either entertaining, or feeding you for a week, whichever you prefer. And it’s so adaptable – get some delicious base ingredients, and play around with methods, herbs and spices and you can get fantastic variations out of one simple recipe.

Which is what I did with the following – craving something with tomato and capsicum one chilly winter evening I got on my internet machine and hunted up a recipe. Souvlaki for the Soul didn’t disappoint with his Roast Capsicum and Tomato Soup. The perfect accompaniment to a winter night on the couch with friends indulging in the Jurassic Park trilogy.

The first time I made it was to the letter, with a sweet, rich tomato soup as end product. The second time I made it I adjusted to what was in my cupboard, substituting fresh flat leaf parsley for basil, paprika for chili, and using fennel and oregano to season the roasting tomatoes instead of balsamic vinegar. I ended up with a lovely robust winter soup, with vegetable stock flavours that really brought out the potato and capsicum, and a delightful warm red colour that really brought out the carnage in Jurassic Park 2.

Tomato and Capsicum Soup
Original recipe here.

What You Will Need

• 8 roma tomatoes, halved lengthways

• 2 large red capsicums

• 1 large or 2 medium desiree or red rascal potatoes

• 2 cloves of garlic

• Olive oil

• 2 tsp Fennel seeds

• 1/2 cup fresh flat leaf parsley

• 1 generous tbsp ground paprika

• A few good shakes dried oregano
  

• 2 cups vegetable stock
  

• Good ole salt and pepper
  

What You Will Need to Do

• Preheat your oven to 160 degrees C

• Chop capsicum into pieces that sit relatively flat on a baking tray.

• Halve your tomatoes and place face down, with capsicum, on an oiled baking tray.

• Drizzle with oil, minced garlic, fennel seeds, dried oregano and salt and pepper.

• Place in oven, set timer for at least 45 minutes.

• If you have extra time, my suggestion is the longer the better!

Your veggies should look something like this going into the oven (if you mood lit them, like I apparently did) :

And something like this coming out:


Mmmm, wrinkly.

• About ten or fifteen minutes before the tomato and capsicum is done, cube the potato and fry in a soup pot, with a little bit of salt, pepper, paprika, and olive oil.

• When potato is tender add tomato paste, and fry for a further minute.

• Add the fresh parsley, roasted tomato and capsicum, stir together.

• Add stock and bring to the boil.

• Blend it to hell with a bamix, or until smooth.

• Salt and pepper to taste.
  

You soup should look something like this before you blend it:

And something like this, after:

Speaking of things from the '90s that make me happy (dinosaurs on the big screen, mostly!) if you've been meaning to get into Pavement, now is the time:

We Dance - from Wowee Zowee
Embassy Row - from Brighten the Corners
Billie - from Terror Twilight

Soup Week 2009

Hello readers, and welcome to the first ever A Whistle and A Milkshake Soup Week! Tara and I are looking forward to bringing you a week of warm liquid goodness, with lots of delicious soup recipes to see you through the next few chilly months.

My lovely fellow blog-mistress and I decided to have a crack at Soup Week 09 on the back of a long e-mail conversation that revolved around soup, in many tasty incarnations. I've had soup on the brain these last few weeks, and in my tummy too. It is perhaps the ultimate comfort food, it banishes that freezing wintry feeling and warms the kitchen while it boils on the stove. I can't think of a more comforting meal than a big bowl of something warm with a buttery bread roll on the side. Mmmmm... soup. We hope you enjoy! 

PS. We will never, ever serve up 'Cream of Beefaroni'. We will always love Natalie Dee.

Punky's Choc Chip Cookies

My favourite food as a child was the humble chocolate chip cookie. Give me a pile of cookies and a big ole glass of milk and I was the world's happiest camper. Although we all know by now cookies are a "sometimes food" it's not something I ever intend to grow out of. My treat for you today is my recipe for double chocolate and macadamia cookies. They're chunky, chewy, fat and full of chocolate, my requisites for the perfect cookie.

Double Chocolate and Macadamia Cookies

What You Will Need

• 2 cups plain flour

• 1/3 cup caster sugar

• 1 cup brown sugar

• 3/4 melted butter

• 1 egg and one egg yolk

• 1 tsp vanilla extract, or 1 tbs vanilla essence

• 1/2 tsp baking soda

• 1/2 cup dark chocolate bits

• 1/2 cup white chocolate bits

• 1/2 cup macadamia nuts, halved or quartered

What You Will Need to Do

• Mix sugar and butter with electric beaters

• And egg, egg yolk and vanilla, and blend until light and creamy

• Sift in flour and baking soda, combine
  

• Stir in chocolate chips and nuts

• Eat some of the dough. You know you want to. Just a little. A teaspoon, maybe. Or two.
  

• Time to shape your cookies. I use a loaded tablespoon per cookie. Roll dough between your hands until you have a little cookie ball and set on a tray lined with baking paper.

• Compress each cookie softly with the heel of your hand, just so it's a bit less spherical.
  

• Place in an oven preheated to 170 degrees C and bake for roughly 15 minutes, or until golden at the edges.

For me, these cookies always come with a big heap of nostalgia. In honour of this, and the fact that fact that these fine fellows are touring the country, I thought I would post some of my favourite childhood music, Simon and Garfunkel. These following tracks are childish in the very best way.

Punky's Dilema
At The Zoo
The 59th Street Bridge Song

Check the tour dates here.

Music to Keep You Warm - Firekites and Seagull

We seem to have missed autumn this year. As soon as the leaves started to turn the cold, cold weather set in, more winter than autumn for my money. Thick fog in the morning, frost on the windshield. Bitter winds that cut right through you and tell you somewhere, not far away, it's snowing. When I was a kid my brother and I would fill a frisbee with water and leave it, upturned, on the grass outside. In the morning we would have a perfect disc of ice, with a couple of perfectly preserved insects in it if we were lucky. I'm pretty sure it's ice-frisbee time of year already.


There are upsides, of course. Coloured stockings. A renewed interest in knitting. Soup, oh, so much soup. And a certain kind of music that lends itself to stillness. Music to listen to huddled up on the bus, or snuggled down under the doona. I imagine if I were walking through the cold city, looking pensive, perhaps warming my hands at a convenient barrel fire, then the following two albums would be my soundtrack.

Seagull - Goodbye Weather

Seagull is a lovely Australian band. Seagull is the project of bright young thing, Chris Bolton, and his friends. Their debut long player Goodbye Weather promises, according to the band's most excellently written press release, "tragical romanticism" "universal melancholy" and "distorted folk apocalypses". Now, I'm not sure I'd enjoy a folk apocalypse, but I do enjoy Seagull.
Simple, sparse, melodic. Minimalist lyrics, deceptively complex arrangements, and a kind of fondness for feelin' blue.
I think Seagull is a good band to have in your headphones when you've missed the bus and have to walk to the city in the cold. Push your hands into your pockets and enjoy the grey sky.

Seagull - Half Sleep
Seagull - Joy
Seagull - Label page
Seagull - Myspace

Firekites - The Bowery

Newcastlians and all 'round nice people Firekites have been making a scene with their debut album The Bowery. But the scene is a rather nice one, with a fireplace, drawn tea, and maybe someone teaching you how to crochet. (I really would like someone to teach me to crochet.)
The Bowery is careful and considered, sweet without being twee and subtle without becoming background music. There is a depth to the melodies, and an intricacy behind the pleasing vocals and violin motifs. Firekites are nice music to have on the stereo of a winter evening when dishing up lovely big bowls of pumpkin soup to friends and loved ones. And the film clip for Autumn Story is just beautiful.

Firekites - Last Ships

Firekites - website
Firekites - buy